By Martin Sieff Mar 21, 2006, 23:09 GMT
The United States has invited India to appoint military officers to liaison posts in the U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, its largest and most critical defense set-up mandated to control strategic nuclear assets, space and missile defense and global deterrence against weapons of mass destruction, India`s Financial Express newspaper reported Tuesday.
STRATCOM, whose area of operation spans the globe, controls all U.S. nuclear delivery platforms, including ballistic missile submarines, B-52 strategic bombers, Minuteman-III intercontinental ballistic missiles and Tomahawk land attack systems. Having an Indian liaison officer on board will allow a more efficient link between Stratcom centers and India`s relatively new Strategic Forces Command that controls Indian military nuclear assets, Financial Express said.
The possibility of posting Indian officers at STRATCOM headquarters in Nebraska first came up when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broached it with Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on June 28, 2005, the day the new Indo-U.S. defense framework was signed. Nine months later, the offer is now formal, the newspaper said.
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